The views expressed in this blog are based entirely on personal tastes and opinions. They should not be construed as professional reviews in anyway. Any resemblance to actual reviews, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.

Sunday, September 04, 2011

Hong Kong Street Sin Rong

C says:

We read a pretty good review of this place in The Sunday Times a few weeks ago, and since it’s just a few minutes’ drive from home, we decided to give it a try.

Call us predictable, but we ordered the exact same dishes that were reviewed – the “sum lo” hor fun, Mongolian pork rib and chicken with salted egg yolk.

Sum lo hor fun is the recognisable dish offered at any establishment that also sells fish head bee hoon. A simple mix of fried hor fun, sliced fish and beansprouts, the dish looks deceptively plain but when executed well, it can be extremely tasty.

I was slightly disappointed with the one here. Perhaps I was comparing it to the more famous ones from the Holland Drive XO Fish Bee Hoon (which has since relocated to Dover Crescent) and Ka Soh, but I found the one here a bit lacking in the flavour department. There wasn’t enough gravy coating each strand of hor fun so it dried out pretty quickly, and the hor fun didn’t have enough wok hei. In addition, I found that the sliced fish wasn’t as fresh, and some slices were even un(der)cooked.

They pretty much redeemed themselves with the salted egg yolk chicken though. To me, this dish is a no brainer. I love fried chicken, and I love anything cooked with salted egg yolk. It’s usually prawns or squid, so it’s refreshing to have it paired with fried chicken here. I was totally happy with this, but A was less keen because the chicken wasn’t deboned.

Finally, the article’s third recommended dish was the Mongolian pork rib. This is a bit like the usual zi char staple pai guat wong, but with a twist. The sauce has a hint of cream and other spices, giving it a slight Western slant. The combination of flavours takes a little getting used to, but all in all this was pretty tasty too.

Some hits and misses so far, but overall we had a good impression of the place; enough to make us want to come back to try a number of other dishes on their rather comprehensive menu.

A says:

Not as good as the old Holland Drive/now Dover Crescent XO Fish Bee Hoon place, but still pretty good. Plus they have a much broader menu (and they give you a physical menu that’s easy to read as well). Thumbs up for some casual zhi char in Pasir Panjang.